The sandstorm answered him.
It ca down like the desert itself had opened its mouth, swallowing the underground chamber in a screaming flood of yellow.
Broken stone, shattered glass, splintered chairs, and the remains of the conference table dragged into the vortex the mont it expanded, grinding together until the air beca a storm of cutting dust.
The lamps along the walls burst one after another, their flas snuffed out by sand before they could even flicker, leaving only Crocodile's cold laughter and the roar of Sables in the darkness.
Robin had already retreated to the broken edge of the chamber with the recording Den Den Mushi protected beneath one arm.
Even then, the sheer force of the storm made her narrow her eyes and brace one hand against the wall.
She knew Crocodile's ability better than anyone in that room, understanding that this attack wasn't frightening just because of its size.
Once Crocodile filled the battlefield with enough sand, the entire environnt beca his weapon.
Vision, footing, distance, breathing, moisture in the air—all of it belonged to him.
And Zaraki stood dead center in it.
His coat thrashed behind him.
The wounds left by Shiki, Enel, and Akainu had never healed, and the bone-dry air of Alabasta made every old injury sting as if the desert were rubbing salt into them.
The bandage around his burned palm tightened until it felt like stiff leather, while thin lines of blood spread where abrasive sand scraped across his shoulders and arms.
His grin didn't fade, it only grew wider.
Pain was never a reason to retreat.
For Zaraki, pain was proof the fight had beco worth paying attention to.
His hand tightened around Murasa.
The black blade gave a faint tremor—not from fear, but from the sa hunger burning in its wielder.
Pitch-black Armant Haki crawled over the steel layer by layer, while dark-gold Reiatsu rose around Zaraki's body like smoke drifting from a battlefield.
It was rough, unstable, and far from the complete form he had touched against Enel, but even that incomplete pressure carried enough weight to make the sand around his feet sink.
The floor beneath him softened.
Crocodile's Sables wasn't just attacking from the front.
The sand beneath Zaraki's boots began to collapse, trying to swallow his legs and steal his balance before the storm finished grinding him apart.
Zaraki stepped forward anyway.
Boom!
His foot slamd down. Dark-gold Reiatsu struck the ground like an invisible anvil, compressing the shifting sand beneath his boots into a dense crater.
Cracks spread outward in a wide ring.
For one brief mont, the surrounding storm seed to pause, as though it had collided with sothing heavier than stone.
Then Murasa rose.
There was no elegance in the movent—no formal school, no beautiful stance passed down by an ancient master. It was nothing but overwhelming strength, Haki, Reiatsu, and the instinct of a beast that knew where to bite.
The blade cut upward, splitting the sandstorm in two.
It didn't vanish entirely. Crocodile's Sables was too wide, too deeply connected to the battlefield, and too saturated with his Devil Fruit power to be erased by a single casual slash.
Even as Murasa tore open the center of the storm, the remaining sand scraped across Zaraki's body, ripping his damaged coat and dragging new red lines across his skin.
But the core of the vortex broke.
The grinding storm that should have swallowed him opened like a curtain forced apart from the inside.
Crocodile's pupils contracted.
'He split it?'
The thought had barely ford when Zaraki walked out from the parted sand, blood sliding down one arm and his grin sharper than before.
"You can do better than that, right?"
Crocodile's expression darkened.
He raised his left hand, and the parted sand curved back from both sides, folding toward Zaraki like jaws closing around prey.
At the sa ti, the ground beneath the Marine softened again, but Crocodile wasn't just trying to trap his legs this ti. He intended to bury him whole.
"Ground Secco."
The floor dried and collapsed into powder.
The walls cracked.
The last traces of moisture in the underground chamber vanished so fast that Mr. 3 felt his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth.
Robin's fingers tightened around the Den Den Mushi as she retreated to a safer angle.
The chamber was no longer taking damage, it was transforming!
Crocodile was turning the underground level of Rain Dinners into a true extension of his desert.
Zaraki felt his boots sink deeper.
His smile held firm while the pressure around his body grew suffocating.
For less than a breath, an incomplete skeletal outline flickered behind him: ribs, one arm, and the vague suggestion of a skull.
It was too unstable to be called a true form, and his damaged body couldn't bear the burden of materializing it, but even that fleeting shadow carried enough weight to make the encroaching sand collapse.
Zaraki leaned forward, and the floor exploded.
In the next heartbeat, he was standing directly in front of Crocodile.
Too fast.
Crocodile's Observation Haki caught the movent, but perceiving it and answering it were two different things.
His body scattered into sand to avoid the slash, yet Murasa was already descending with Armant Haki wrapped around the edge.
The blade didn't catch all of him. Crocodile twisted at the last possible mont, avoiding a direct blow that would have split his chest open.
Even so, the slash tore across his shoulder, splashing blood into the sand.
The wound was real.
The residual Haki prevented his elental body from smoothing over the damage.
Crocodile's face twisted in pain and the sheer humiliation of being wounded so blatantly in his own territory.
Boom!
His body flew backward, crashing through the remains of the conference wall and blasting stone fragnts and sand into the corridor beyond.
The chamber fell silent for half a second before Zaraki landed, Murasa resting slack at his side.
His breathing remained steady, but the bandage around his burned hand had darkened with fresh blood. Sand clung to his coat while blood ran down his shoulder, disappearing beneath the torn cloth.
He stared at the hole Crocodile had smashed through and clicked his tongue.
"You dodged."
From the corridor beyond, Crocodile's voice echoed like dry stone scraping against bone.
"You damned Marine brat…"
The sand began to rise again.
Zaraki's eyes brightened. "Good. You're still standing."
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